


If It Pleases You

by gloriousthorn



Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician), Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, John Keats - Fandom, Snow White (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Good witch, Horses, True Love's Kiss, forest god, or at least chaotic neutral witch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 09:41:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20445047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriousthorn/pseuds/gloriousthorn
Summary: As the Eve of Saint Agnes approaches, Fionna, the youngest daughter of a local noble, fears what marriage may hold for her.  Meanwhile, her childhood best friend, Niall, the only son of the village luthier, fears losing his true love forever.  He reaches out to the local witch, Nuala, for help, only to be asked what he will put on the line to have Fionna for himself.(Andrew as prince.)





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roosebolton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roosebolton/gifts), [MToddWebster (RembrandtsWife)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/gifts).

> Is Nuala the same witch as the one mentioned in The Woods Between Worlds? Yes. I feel like she'll get a story all of her own at some point soon.
> 
> The Eve of Saint Agnes is a gorgeous John Keats poem you should read if you don't know it, and it will shed a bit of light on some of the allusions in this story other than the obvious Snow White parallels.

The sun was still high, though on its way to setting, when Fionna went walking to the edge of her father’s land. There was nowhere else to go, in these last days of her girlhood, on a restless late afternoon shot through with chilly breezes. As she walked and looked towards the edge of the land, she saw the figure coming towards her. Could it— her heart leapt in a way she had not expected it would.

“Niall?” she called.

The figure raised a hand in greeting, and it was him, Niall the son of the luthier, gone so many months ago to begin his studies in his father’s work in the city. She raised her own hand in return, and when she lowered it, she rested it on her heart for a moment— her heartbeat had quickened to see him. Should she—

He walked up to her, and he had grown so tall— he had always been tall, but he towered over her now. Still his smile was gentle and broad. He carried a guitar in one hand and a small posey of daisies and foxgloves in the other, only common things that grew along the road behind the manor but still warm and fragrant. It occurred to Fionna then:  _ We are no longer playmates. I am the daughter of the lord of the manor; he is the son of the luthier, who will no longer come to see the young lady empty-handed.  _ But he did not bow, only stopped before her and offered her the posey.

“Fionna,” he said, warmly, and she realised too that he spoke now with the voice of a man, “or is it— my lady?”

“Call me by my name, Niall, always,” she said, taking the posey and breathing in the sweet, honeyed scent of it deeply. “Thank you so much. It’s been— how many months?”

“A year. More than a year.”

“That long?” 

He thought for a moment. “Aye, I suppose. You’ve grown.”

“You also.”

“I brought this to show to you,” he said, holding the guitar out to her. “I built it myself.”

“It’s beautiful,” Fionna said, stroking the neck with her finger. “You can play it?”

He laughed. “What good would it be if I couldn’t?”

“And can you sing a song with it as well?”

“Aye. Would you like to hear one?”

Fionna smiled. “I would,” she said. “If you please.”

“If it pleases you.”

“Let’s go into the stables. No one will look for us there.”

“No one will look for us? Why would that matter?”

Fionna sighed. “Ah, come this way with me,” she said, and Niall followed her through the meadow to the stables. It was where they had met as children, when Niall turned up as an occasional stablehand to supplement his pocket money. He combed Fionna’s pony, pitched hay and sifted oats for her sisters’ and her father’s horses, and when Fionna’s old nurse dozed in the late afternoon, they would steal away to the fields beyond the manor and chase each other in long light-filled circles and sneak wild berries from the nearby bushes. In the shadows of her half-dozen older sisters, one or the other perpetually preparing to be married off, Fionna ran free— perhaps, as her father had recently decided, somewhat too free.

In the stable Fionna stopped by her mare, Libby, for a nuzzle before she climbed the ladder to the hayloft, even in her longer skirts; Niall quickly followed her, hoisting his guitar on his back by the strap he’d fashioned for it. It was always her favourite place when they played hide-and-seek as children. She brushed as much hay into a shallow pile as she could, mindful of her dress, and settled herself down, Niall doing the same beside her.

“I am the last,” Fionna said. “All my sisters have gotten husbands, and my father will see me married within the year.”

Niall nodded. “Will you, then? Marry?”

Fionna laughed bitterly. “Have I any choice in the matter?”

“Do you want to marry?”

“What else will I do?” Fionna drew up her knees. “I can’t do anything useful. No one will send me off to the city to learn to build things, or apprentice me. And I can’t learn being shut up in the manor as I am. I’ve been deemed adequately educated for a young lady. My governess was dismissed and I spend all my time in needlework and prayer.”

Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Then Niall asked, “For what do you pray?”

Fionna sighed. “I don’t wish to hurt my father— or insult my mother’s memory,” she said. “She certainly wouldn’t have wished anything else for me. But I pray to be happy.” She thought for a moment— it was so painful, but it did no one any good to be silent. “Two of my sisters made poor matches indeed. They did not dream of a name on the eve, and allowed themselves to be plied to choose whatever fool brought the finest favours, only to be used cruelly as wives, cut off from us and from their friends. So I pray to be saved from such a fate, from unkindness and indifference. For what else—” 

She paused, and lowered her chin to her knees, and looked up at her old playmate. He was watching her, his eyes soft but wide, as though he had been waiting for her to look his way. 

She brushed her long, night-dark hair behind her ear, touched the posey sitting beside her with a small, pale finger. “I dare not ask,” she finally concluded. “I am blessed beyond measure. I have never been hungry, or without family or friends or a home. Whatever else is to be for me, I leave to God.”

“Your father will host the feast on the Eve of Saint Agnes?”

“To be sure. The preparations are great, and tedious.”

Niall nodded, pushed back his own hair— it was so long, Fionna realised, soft chestnut curls brushing his shoulders. “What would you do, then, if you could?”

Fionna thought for a long moment. One of the horses made a soft whinny below them, and she smiled. “I’d take whatever might be left of my mother’s things— her jewels and such,” she said. “Take one of those horses. Go off to the city, sell the jewels, find a library and educate myself until I ran out of silver and hopefully be fitted to do something worthwhile by then.”

“What’s stopping you, then?”

She sighed. “My mother wouldn’t have been able to imagine such a thing,” she said. “I remember her sitting up late on the Eves, praying for my sisters. I thank God she died before she could know— some of what happened. And certainly my father would be mad with grief.”

“Ah, but they’ve lived their lives, haven’t they, Fionna. You’re barely more than a girl— it’s not too late for you.” He pushed his hair back again. “You’re bright, you’re young, you could make a go of it.”

“Don’t you have big ideas, then, Niall, after your time in the city, surely surrounded by useless young noblewomen who’ve run off just like that.” 

“Sure, Fionna, there’s not many like that. And there’s not many like you.”

She colored at that, and said nothing, but a small smile played at the corners of her lips.

He said then, “Shall I play a song for you?”

“Please do.”

He tuned the guitar, and sang of a bird and a long-lost love with a voice so low and sweet that Fionna’s heart stirred the way it had when she first saw him. Almost without thinking she laid her head on a shoulder sharp but warm through his soft linen tunic. She wondered if he was surprised. He did not startle. And when he finished, he lowered the guitar in his lap and leaned back, and laid his head on hers; he reached for her hand, and she let him cradle it in his, their fingers curling together lightly, not quite grasping.

Niall turned to her after a long moment. “Fionna—” he began.

“Fionna!” came a bellow from below.

She blanched, lifted her head and snatched back her hand, but said nothing.

It did no good. Her father clambered up the ladder. “Fionna,” he said, “and— Niall? The son of the luthier?”

Niall scrambled to his feet. “My lord,” he said hastily, making a brief bow. 

“Home from the city, then?”

“Yes, my lord. Continuing my apprenticeship with my father.”

“Very well. Business is good?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Then I advise you to return to it. Fionna is late for dinner, and then will say her evening prayers 

and adjourn to bed for the evening. Is that your understanding, daughter?”

Fionna lowered her eyes. “Yes, father.”

Niall cleared his throat. “Of course, my lord.”

“Very well. And Fionna will be very much engaged with preparations for the feast on the Eve of Saint Agnes in the coming days. So I do not expect she will have time for a childhood playmate.”

The cold wind returned, blowing through the open doors of the stable. Fionna looked up at Niall, whose face betrayed nothing, cool and closed. 

“Fionna. It is time for dinner. Will you come down, please? And will Niall see himself home?”

“Yes, my lord.” Niall shifted his guitar to his back again and made his way towards the ladder. When Fionna’s father had turned his back, he reached for Fionna’s hand and held it as tightly as he dared for a moment.

“I will come back,” he whispered.

Fionna nodded. 

He kissed her hand and scrambled down the ladder. Fionna watched him walk out of the stables in which they’d frolicked as children, murmuring a soft goodbye to Libby. He was no longer a child. She did not know if she could say the same of herself.

She shimmied down the ladder not without reluctance and met her father. “Fionna,” he said, shaking his head, “what do you mean by all this? You are a young lady preparing for marriage. Lolling about in the stables with a servant boy…”

“Niall is grown now, father—”

“All the more reason to keep your distance. There will be dozens of much more suitable prospects at your feast on the Eve. Your virtue, your future, these must be kept safe. Come, it’s time for dinner.”

Fionna followed her father but kept one eye on Niall, who did not turn back but continued through the meadow towards the back road lined with the daisies and foxgloves she’d remembered to bring from the hayloft, the road that would return him into the village by way of the witch’s cottage. What else was there to say? Perhaps nothing. And yet—

“I will speak to my guard and ensure he keeps his distance,” her father said, nodding decisively. “I’ll thank you to avoid the meadow and the stables in the coming days. It grows chilly with winter and I’ll not have you catching a cold before the feast.”

Fionna only nodded, unable to find words. Niall’s figure grew smaller in the distance as he turned on to the road. He promised to return. She clutched the posey in her stiff hand, and said a silent prayer:  _ Make his words so, merciful God, if it pleases you. _


	2. II.

A knock came to the door of Nuala’s cottage. The eve of Saint Agnes was approaching, and unexpected visitors at this time of year were not unusual; charms to strengthen the power of dreams, or bring forth a particular name in them, were in demand as the bolder young girls of the surrounding villages slipped away from their devotions to the patron of virgins to flirt with the other forces at work. Nuala assumed she would open her door to yet another maiden ready to part with her pocket money for a posey of tansy and forget-me-not tied around a hazel branch with a bit of ribbon and a silver charm— never known to fail for those who could pay, and overcome their fear of the witch herself or of being seen with her.

But at the door was no maiden; it was Niall, the son of the luthier, who could always be counted on to nod courteously at her in the market or help her carry her goods home when she’d overbought a bit. Not everyone could. Over his arm he carried a small calfskin satchel, and in his hand he held a handsome guitar. “Are you here to sing me a song, then, lad?” she asked with a chuckle. 

“I might be,” he said evenly. “I might give you anything you ask, for I’m in need of some great magic.”

Nuala raised her eyebrows. “It’s a busy time for me, as I’m sure you must know,” she said. 

“I need your help, Nuala, and I’m prepared to make it worth your while.”

“You seek a charm on behalf of a young lady, for the eve?”

“Something like that.”

She smiled. “Well, come in, then,” she said, opening the door. 

“Thank you,” he said, bending his head as he crossed the threshold and lifting the guitar tenderly.

“Tea? Perhaps a bit of mead?”   
  


“Nothing, thank you.” His face was drawn. A handsome lad— perhaps less a lad than he’d been when he’d gone away, a young man now really— in his own way, Nuala thought, even before he’d gone away, even melancholy as he clearly was now. Not everyone’s kind, all arms and legs, hair unruly and perhaps a touch too long. But he didn’t need to be everyone’s kind. She wondered if Fionna, the lord’s youngest daughter, still made doe eyes at him. Come to think of it, Nuala realised then, she hadn’t seen Fionna in some time. 

Nuala poured two portions of the mead anyway. “Drink up, I bid you. Fortify yourself. And tell me what you’ll be needing.”

Niall sighed. “I’ve never courted a maiden,” he said. “Never wanted to. I’ve loved Fionna for as long as I can remember.”

She shook her head. “I hear there are a hundred men expected for the feast on the eve. Men with money, men with land, from miles around, even over the sea. Hopefully at least some of them better than the scoundrels her last two sisters ended up with.”

“That’s why I need your magic.”

“She’s not come to see me.”

“And she won’t. She’s rarely allowed to leave the manor, and even if she was, she—” Niall paused. 

“You don’t have to tell me, lad. The old ways aren’t for everyone.”

“So there you have it. I have to come to you myself.”

“What do you suppose I can do?” Nuala took a long drink of the mead. “Does she love you? Spirit her away off to the city, take a ship across the sea, be happy together. You need no magic for all that.”

He finally took a drink himself. “I’m forbidden to see her. She does not answer my letters. I suspect her father has taken it upon himself to intercept them.”

“Maybe she no longer wishes to answer them.”

He set the goblet down rather heavily. “Nuala, Fionna would never simply stop responding to me.”

“Even if she loves you, lad, the idea of disappointing the lord, breaking ties with her family— that’s a heavy thought for a young maiden, especially one as gentle and sheltered as she has been. She may indeed love you, but have decided that the better part is to honour her father’s wishes.”

He didn’t respond immediately. He gazed into the fire for a long moment. Then he said, “I don’t wish to— turn her heart. By magic. If she doesn’t want me, I’ll have to live with it.”

“Ah, if my magic could do that, lad, it’d be me living in the great manor house,” Nuala said with a laugh. “But the heart is a funny thing. And even just to know what the heart wants is a difficult thing. That I can do, though. Perhaps.”

He looked up from the fire. “What are you thinking, then?”

She tapped her chin with a finger for a moment, then swept her dark brown hair with the beginning of its streaks of white over her shoulders. “Young Niall,” she said, “here is what I’ll do for you. I’ll enchant you some favour for Fionna— hair ribbons, an apple, whatever you like. Her father must permit you into the feast to tender your favour— it’s the custom, and whatever else he is, he’s a hidebound creature who won’t risk his reputation by refusing you. But the enchantment—” She turned to him suddenly, pointed her finger. “Lad, you must know her heart, for this is a powerful enchantment, and not easily undone.”

“Please, tell me.”

She sighed. “The enchantment,” she said, “will take her into a sleep as deep as death, from which she can only be awoken by the kiss of her true love. In this way you know she will not be wedded to anyone else until you can find your way into the manor, to her side, and awaken her.”

Niall’s eyes widened in fear. “Will not her father have her buried?” he said. 

“When the doctor and the priest come, they will find her cold, but living. They will not bury her. They will weep and pray for a cure for some days, and while they do, you must be swift, and stealthy, if the lord will see you punished for violating the banishment outside the eve. And there I cannot help you. If you love her, and if she loves you, then you must find a way. So you see, my lad, all I can grant you is time. You must think quick, and act quicker, and above all your hearts must be true.”

Niall nodded. “I will all of that, Nuala.”

“And if her heart is not inclined to you— ” Nuala paused. “I know not how else to undo the enchantment. There may not be a way. You see what a heavy thing this is.”

Fear flickered across his face, but he nodded. “I see.”

“Very well.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’ll need all of today and tomorrow to prepare the enchantment. And you’ll need to bring me a favour in the morning, and of course there’s the small matter of payment.”

“I know.”

“Do you? I charge ten pieces of silver for the charms I make for the young girls, and I can assemble those in an hour or two. This enchantment will take me nearly two days of work, and imperil me should you be wrong, and Fionna loves you not.” She sighed. “For your courtesies to me, I can offer you the enchantment for eighty pieces. I would charge anyone else one hundred.”

He looked in his satchel. “I have but forty,” he said. 

“You come to see me for a matter as heavy as this with forty pieces. Were you born at night, lad, or last night?”

“I brought my guitar also,” he said. “Even as the work of an apprentice, my father would charge a hundred and fifty pieces for it.”

“What use have I for a guitar?” she said. “Why not sell it in your father’s shop and bring me the silver when you do, then?”

“Because time is so short. And because— it is the most valuable thing I have. I wrote all manner of songs on it, and I sang one of them for Fionna just before we were parted. There’s magic in that, isn’t there?”

Nuala stroked the neck of the guitar. “Ah, lad, don’t sell this lovely thing,” she said. She paused for a long moment. “It’s a half moon tonight, you know.”

“Aye.”

“I’m not getting any younger, lad.. And what I want more than silver, or certainly more than 

your guitar, is a babe of my own.”

Niall’s eyes widened.

“That is, I might accept another form of payment,” she added. 

“Sorry?”

“The time is right. Lie with me, tonight, and I’ll teach you the ways of pleasing a woman, such that, should you wake Fionna from her sleep, you’ll be able to make it worth her while, aye?”

“Nuala, I—” Niall paused. “I’ve...never lain with a woman.”

“Well, no time like the present.”

“You’re a fine woman, Nuala, you know I think so, but—”

“Don’t fear. I won’t name you or ask you for another coin. You’ll be long gone with Fionna, and I’ll have a babe, if the gods are willing, and may the devil take the whole of the town if they look at me sideways.”

“Are you not worried that the priest will finally have a reason to bring you in on charges? Immorality, licentiousness, what have you? That you’ll—”

“Burn?” She laughed. “I am under the protection of the great god of the forest. He is ready for me to call on him. I am not afraid.” 

Niall looked at her with admiration. “To your health,” he said with a small nod, taking a long drink.

“May it be so,” she agreed. “So, young Niall, this is my bargain. Will you, then?”

“Ah, well, what choice do I have?”

“Always a choice. Go back to your father’s shop with your virtue, make yourself another and another guitar, write new songs for new young ladies, and forget about Fionna. You can do that, lad. Or…”   
  


He shook his head. “No.”

Nuala refilled the goblets with mead. “Well, then. Let me see you.”

He was a virgin, wasn’t he, Nuala thought, taking a drink of the mead as he lifted off his tunic slowly, almost demurely, dingy around the edges and damp with sweat from sitting beside the fire. But a pretty young man, to be sure. If he did not give her a child, still it would be no chore to lie with him. His frame was narrow and fair, but solid, his chest flocked lightly with the same chestnut hair as his head. Yes, he would do well. She imagined his babe, with his emerald eyes and dark curls—  _ god of the forest, give me a babe, if it pleases you,  _ she thought.

“Let me see you, then,” he returned, those eyes challenging hers, and she laughed, pushing her loose gown off her shoulders and unlacing her stays.

“Have you ever even seen a woman, lad?” she asked.

He paused before he could slide off his breeches. “I did go to a brothel once in the city, with a few of the other apprentices,” he admitted. “I was too shy to meet with any of the ladies. I saw a few of them in various states of undress. Not like you, though.”

“Not like me?” She settled herself astride his thighs, stroked him almost lazily.

“Ah, Nuala—” he moaned, softly, and Nuala was pleased. “Not like you. Difficult. Wise.”

She laughed, and kissed him. “Ah, don’t you know just what to say.”

She showed him how to treat her heavy breasts with tenderness, how to hold them and suckle them gently; she eased his hand between her legs and guided his long, nimble fingers around and within her; she settled him on her bed, sat astride him, and brought herself to his mouth, and he kissed her, first tentatively and then hungrily, and she moaned as he made her warm and wet. The sky darkened and, had they cared to look, they could see the half-moon rising.

“Aren’t you a quick study,” she panted, running her fingers through his hair. 

“You really think I ought to— all that, then— with Fionna?” Niall asked, reaching down to stroke himself.

“Not too hard there, lad, we’re not finished yet. And of course you ought, as much as it pleases her at least. You’re asking a woman to spend the whole of her life with you, forsake all others? Do you not want to please her, make your bed a place of pleasure and joy?”

“Well, of course.”

“Well, then.” She kissed him lightly. “Now, lad, you’ll want to be gentle with Fionna, and ask what she might like, but for me, I’d like to see you atop me now, aye?”

“Ah? Like such?” And he laid her on her back and hovered above her.

“Just like that, aye. Go ahead.”

And he entered her and they both gasped, and giggled, and clung to each other until he finished— not as swiftly as other lads might have, Nuala thought, but still, he was young, and quick, and she could only shake her head and smile at his spirit. He kissed her with great tenderness, and when he rolled off her, she pulled her knees to her chest and lay still for a few long minutes.

“Nuala?” he said. “Are you— pleased, then?”

“Aye, lad. It’s best if I lie here for a moment.”

He nodded. “Shall I bring you some water?”

“Please.”

He brought it, and then began to dress himself again. 

“Don’t be in such a hurry when you lie with Fionna,” Nuala said. “Stay beside her. Hold her, tell her how lovely she is.”

“I will.” He paused. “Shall I—”

“Ah, no, lad.” She said nothing for a long moment. Then she said, “Don’t leave yet. I’ll need a lock of your hair and a thimble of your blood for the enchantment. That needs to steep overnight. So before you go.”

“Aye.” 

She rose then, allowed herself one last look at his pretty chest and neck, dressed herself, and picked up her bone penknife from the mantel. 

“Sit down again.”

He did so. 

“Give me your left hand.”

She slit the pale skin of his left hand until the blood showed— he bit his lip, but said nothing— then handed him a thimble. “Draw the blood out until the thimble is full,” she instructed. “Now, let me see here. My, but you’ve a fine head of hair, lad. You’ll hardly notice it’s gone.” She combed her fingers through it. A handsome lad, indeed, in his way. Perhaps if he’d been older— certainly he had no lack of courage, or passion— but no. She had always known her end would not come with any mortal man by her side. She only hoped to see the babe grow before she would have to call on the god of the forest. She only hoped Fionna was wise enough, in her heart, to see Niall for what he was, that the enchantment would work. 

Nuala cut the lock of hair from near the nape of his neck, and combed it again, as much for her own pleasure and his as to cover the cut. She felt the skin on the back of his neck raise in gooseflesh, in which she took a certain small satisfaction. “There you are, now, lad,” she said, patting his shoulder. “Here’s a cloth for your hand. Go now, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thank you, Nuala.” He stood to go.

“May the Old Ones be with you.”

He nodded, bending his head in the doorway again. “And also with you.”

She smiled. “They are.”


	3. III.

Fionna sat beside her father at the head of the table, still piled high with pomegranates and oranges, cakes and candies, and set with goblets for yet another round of wine. The minstrels played another sweet air; the maids cleared away the empty flagons and platters and set out yet more. She blushed and bowed her head with each fine gift each suitor laid before her as her father beamed and discreetly examined the favours. She stroked the bolts of rose silk from the man she was sure was a pirate; she rolled the string of pearls around in her hand appreciatively but politely declined the wealthy trader’s offer to fasten them around her neck. She had sat patiently through similar banquets for her older sisters, but this was the last and largest. Tales of her beauty had spread far and wide, and nearly a hundred men had traveled far to offer her their favours. None of them were disappointed when they looked upon her, wrapped in a gown of deep blue velvet and set with silver ornaments. Each one hoped that she would dream of him on the Eve of Saint Agnes and come forward to be his wife. 

After she accepted an emerald brooch from a minor prince of the land across the sea, her father rose. “My esteemed guests,” he said, “thank you for the great honours you offer to me and my family, and especially to my youngest daughter, Fionna. On this night, Fionna, who has now reached a marriageable age, will pray to the patron of virgins to reveal the name of the man who will be her husband, and by your favours this eve, may it be one of you! Now I do implore you to continue to partake of the wine, the sweets—”

“Sir!”

A small commotion arose at the door to the banquet hall. Fionna lifted her head. It was the head of her father’s guard, breathless and red-faced.

“Guard?”

“There is one more suitor requesting admittance to the feast.”

“Well, show him in. There is still plenty of wine.”

“It is— the son of the luthier.”

Fionna lowered her face. She was certain it was burning. She thought of his hand in hers, that afternoon in the hayloft; his shoulder against her face—

Her father cleared his throat. “It is custom, of course,” he said, stiffly, “that every suitor be allowed to tender his favour on the Eve of Saint Agnes. Therefore show the son of the luthier into the hall, pour him wine, offer him fruit and cake.”

The guests applauded her father’s generosity, his honouring of the tradition. 

Fionna was taken aback to see him— she remembered how he’d grown so tall, when she touched his chestnut curls for the first time, how dark and fiery his mild and mossy green eyes could be— as well-attired as he could afford, surely, his curls tied back and without his guitar in his arm. He wore a new tunic under a dark coat, simple but well-cut and clean, and carried a small satchel of calfskin— none of the silks or silver worn by all the rich men in the hall, but handsome, and neat, and heartbreaking.

She lowered her face again, for a moment, and when she looked up again his eyes were waiting for hers. Tears sprung to her eyes unexpectedly. 

“Thank you for your hospitality, my lord,” Niall said courteously, making a small bow. “But I will not overstay my welcome. I ask only for the chance to offer the lady my own favour, as custom would allow.”

“But of course,” her father said. “Step forward.”

Niall did so, approaching Fionna’s place of honour at the head of the table. He knew the rite, would follow it despite the tear running down her pale cheek. He knelt before her, took her hand in his, and lifted it to his lips.

She said with her eyes:  _ I’m so sorry. _

He nodded, and kissed her hand, and said only, “Lady, I offer you my favour.”

He reached into his satchel and drew out an apple— not like the apples on the table before them, all fat and red-gold, but the deepest scarlet Fionna had ever seen, almost purple in one light, almost black in another. 

Fionna’s father was visibly relieved, and laughed a hearty laugh. An apple! Why, Fionna had all the apples she could ever want, right here on this table, and the man whose name she would dream this night would keep her in apples and more for the rest of her life. This foolish son of the luthier and his apple. It would be the last time he would ever darken the doorway.

“Well, we do thank you,” he bellowed, “for bestowing your...favour. A blessed eve to you.”

“And to you, my lord,” Niall said, but his eyes did not leave Fionna’s. 

As her father laughed, and stepped aside to shake the hand of one of the other suitors who desired a word, Niall rose to his feet, her hand still in his, and whispered in her ear as her father turned his back: “Take it to your bedchamber and eat of it before you sleep.”  _ _ He paused. “If it pleases you.”

Fionna was stunned still. Not even her eyes could ask him what he meant.

Niall squeezed her hand with both of his— his left hand was bandaged, she noticed— and then strode out. Before he had even crossed the threshold, everyone else in the room had forgotten the tall son of the luthier and his apple. But Fionna slipped the apple into the pocket of her dress, holding it in her hand for a long moment, the flesh of it cool and smooth under her fingers. In the midst of the table piled high with pears and tarts and mead, no one would miss just one apple.

*

The suitors were still feasting when Fionna begged her father’s leave near midnight. “Ah, my tender daughter is ready to dream,” he crowed. “Good night, dear Fionna, and may Saint Agnes be with you!”

She smiled, in a way she hoped looked modest and not ill. She touched the apple in her pocket as she climbed the stairs, and made her way to her bedchamber. 

“Will I help you undress, my lady?” the old nurse asked, rousing from her light sleep beside the fire when Fionna stepped inside.

“I thank you, no, nurse. I’d like to say my prayers and go to sleep.”

“Very good, my lady.” She beamed and kissed Fionna’s forehead. “I’ll be right outside. May Saint Agnes be with you.”

“Good night,” Fionna returned, squeezing the old woman affectionately and watching her move none too quickly towards the door, finally closing it behind her.

Fionna undressed herself with some difficulty, the gown and its accompaniments heavy and many, set the apple on her dressing table on top of the small chest of her mother’s jewels— “You’re about to be married, it’s time you should have them, of course,” her father said jovially last night, pressing the chest into her hands— and with relief changed into her nightdress and picked up her hairbrush.  _ Like Saint Agnes herself,  _ one of the suitors had said to her, rather insolently (she thought) fondling a lock of her hair. She brushed it out, shaking her head. Not one of them had asked her a question about herself or complimented her beyond her hair or her gown. Not like—

She paused her brushstrokes, and considered the apple.  _ What had he meant with that, _ she wondered.  _ In my bedchamber. Why would it matter? _

She laid the brush aside and picked up the apple.  _ What’s stopping you, then? _ he had asked her that afternoon in the stable. And then she hadn’t stopped him, hadn’t stood up to her father. She had watched him walk home by the way of the witch’s cottage, him the only one who was ever kind to the witch and had ever asked Fionna a question about herself. 

She drew the book of hours from the chest with her mother’s jewels, and with no small regret opened it to the pages where the daisy and foxglove from the posey Niall had brought her those months ago were pressed. She knelt on her prayer cushion, crossed herself, and sought the icon of the virgin in the pages of the book.  _ God, deliver me,  _ she prayed.  _ However it might happen. My life, which has always been yours, I place in your hands this night. And if it pleases you, and Saint Agnes, let me not be engaged to some rich fool this night. _

She decided she had prayed long enough.

She blessed herself, rose to her feet, drew the bedcovers back, and picked up the apple.

She took a bite. What was that? Was it—


	4. IV.

Fionna’s father woke in the earliest hours of the morning to the sound of thumping on his bedchamber door, and found Fionna’s old nurse standing before him, red-faced and wheezing.

“Well, nurse,” he said, yawning, “and has our Fionna dreamed of her husband? What say she in her sleep?”

“Oh, my lord,” the nurse gasped, “Fionna is dead, as sure as I stand here before you.”

“ _ Dead? _ ” The lord seized his dressing gown and hastily tied it on. “Surely she is sleeping heavily after last night’s great feast. Perhaps she had too much wine.”

“I beg you, try to wake her. I cannot.”

“Come, nurse.” And they hurried down the hall to Fionna’s chamber, where her father saw her lying in bed but the wrong way, as if she’d fallen backwards rather than climbed inside, the covers drawn back. 

“Fionna, my dear,” he called loudly, “awake! Tell us of your dream!”

There was no response.

Her father shook her shoulder. “Fionna,” he said, “your father bids you wake.”

Still no response. 

He laid his hand on her cheek. “She is cold,” he murmured, aghast. “Nurse, I do fear she is dead.”

The nurse burst into tears; the lord took her in his arms, and his own eyes quickly filled. How could Fionna be  _ dead?  _ He had bid her a fond farewell as the feast wound down last night; she had promised to say her prayers and hoped to dream of the man who would be her husband. She was composed and lovely, her cheeks rosy, her step on the stair steady. 

But they sent a messenger for the doctor and the priest, and sat by her bedside, and waited. Neither of them noticed the apple that had nearly rolled under the bed, a single bite taken from it, its flesh under the wine-dark skin still as white as when the skin had first been pierced.

*

The doctor and the priest examined Fionna, and conferred, and shuddered. “My lord,” the doctor said, “your daughter’s heart still beats. But her blood lies cold. Indeed she is not dead, but—” He stopped.

“I fear there is dark magic at work here,” the priest interjected. “Tell me, did your daughter have any dealings with Nuala the witch? Sometimes the young ladies purchase various tricks from her for the eve of Saint Agnes, in hopes of having the dream they wish— which is certainly vanity, but still they do it.”

“Certainly not,” the lord said, drawing himself up even in his grief. “Fionna would never seek out the witch— she is a young woman well aware of the danger, and the grave sin, of dealing in such things.”

“Have you any enemies who may have made their way into the feast last night?” the doctor asked.

“None. I am an exceptionally generous and fair man, as you both well know. And my guard is vigilant.”

“To be sure, my lord,” the priest hastily agreed. “I will keep you and your family in prayer, that a cure may be found for your daughter’s great sleep, and will in the meantime anoint her in oil and with the words of the rite for the sick.” 

“And I will return to the apothecary and seek out such a cure,” the doctor said, though he knew he would do no such thing. There was only one place a cure might be found. 

“In the meantime, you may wish to strengthen your guard, as clearly there is ill wished on you and your home,” the priest advised, drawing the vial of oil from his robes. 

“I will indeed,” he said. “May we find the cause and root it out swiftly.”

“Indeed,” the doctor agreed, putting on his coat. “I will return as soon as I am able, and by the grace of God, with a cure in hand.”

“Our prayers go with you,” said the priest, who knew where the doctor was going.

*

The doctor knocked on the door of Nuala the witch. “Well,” she said, opening the door, “and to what do I owe this pleasure, doctor?”

“Surely you know.”

“All the magic out there in the world, especially at this time of year, I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me.”

“Fionna, the daughter of the lord.”

“Yes?”

“She’s fallen into a deep sleep almost like death, that nothing and no one can wake.”

“What a terrible shame.” Nuala smothered a laugh.

“Only one person could have had a hand in such a thing.”

“You think so? Tell me, would any witness place me within a hundred yards of the lord’s manor? Or would anyone state that he saw blameless, pure Fionna within the same of this house?” She laughed. “My magic may be powerful, but all magic needs a will, needs a body.”

“So you did not work alone.”

Nuala winked. “Come in, doctor. Have a drink.”

The doctor sighed and stepped inside Nuala’s cottage. 

“Tea?” she asked. “Perhaps a drop of whiskey with it?”

“Very well.”

She nodded. “You and me, doctor,” she said, setting the kettle over the fire, “we are practical people. The priest will say his prayers, and the lord will fortify his guard, but we know there is something much simpler at work here.”

The doctor looked up in surprise. “We do?”

“Oh, aye. You think I would cast young Fionna into some strange sleep for my own amusement? Land’s sakes, doctor, have you ever known me to cast a spell for evil?”

“I have not.”

“Well, then.” She looked satisfied. “What will cure Fionna? The kiss of her true love, of course.”

“Her true love? She is a maiden.”

“A maiden she may be, but the son of the luthier seems to believe that he is her true love.” The kettle steamed; Nuala shifted over to the fire, poured two cups of tea. “Before the eve, he came to me and asked for a spell that would prevent Fionna from being wedded to one of the rich fools parading before her father. He believes in his marrow that Fionna loves only him.” She handed a mug to the doctor, who nodded his thanks. “I enchanted an apple he could give her as a favour that would put her in a deathlike sleep that true love can awaken.”

“You know he is banished from the lord’s manor, and the lord has posted guards at every door.”

“Ah, so. Young Niall will have to be clever.” She sat in the chair beside the doctor. “I suspect he knows a thing or two.”

“Even if he is clever,” the doctor said angrily, “what if he is not her true love? What if young Niall has fooled himself, in his grief or his anger or his lust?”   
  


Nuala smiled. “Ah, well,” she said. “There is another antidote, to be sure. I figured it out and brewed it at the same time as the original spell. Should Niall fail, I will sell it to the lord for the right price.”

“Well, haven’t you feathered your nest, Nuala. What on Earth did you charge the young man for the enchantment? If I hadn’t seen him fully clothed on his way to the feast last night, I’d have guessed up to and including the shirt on his back.”

“Oh, we worked something out.”

“I dare not even ask what you mean.”

“Ah, he’s a man now, isn’t he? So don’t worry yourself too much, doctor, about any of it.” She sipped her tea and smiled. “Now we just enjoy the show for the next little while, whatever it is, whether it’s the young lady of the manor running off with the luthier’s son or the lord having to grovel to the village witch for a cure for whatever ails his precious daughter.”

“Ah, Christ, Nuala, if it pleases you, then, I suppose.”

She smiled. “Aye,” she said, “it does.”


	5. V.

Two nights later, Niall remained at his bench in the back of the shop long after the sun had set and he’d eaten a hasty supper with his father. “Son?” he heard his father call from the doorway.

“Yes, father?”

“It’s late, then— won’t you come to bed soon?”

“Soon enough.” Niall put down the lathe and looked up at his father. “I want to finish this one tonight.”

“Oh, aye?” His father came over to his workbench. “Isn’t that a pretty one. Is that a custom order, then?”

“No, but I imagine it will sell quickly.”

“It should fetch a nice sum, aye, but we’ve enough stock at the moment— what are you in such a hurry for?”

“Father,” Niall said, “I may need to leave rather suddenly. I don’t want to leave you short stocked should I have to leave you shorthanded.”

“Why would you need to do that, then?”

“I’ll explain, should it come to that, but please don’t worry.”

His father raised his eyebrows. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with this rumour I’ve heard about the young lady of the manor falling into some strange sleep, now, would it?”

Niall said nothing at first, only ran his finger of the smooth wooden surface of the new guitar to check for any remaining unevenness or roughness. Finally he said, “It may come to nothing, father. I just want you to be well-situated is all.”

“You’ve not— dishonoured her in any way, have you?”

“No indeed, father.”

“Ah, well, forgive an old man who was young once for asking.” He leaned against the bench for a moment. “My, but I remember the two of you as children. Thick as thieves. Always wondered if I shouldn’t perhaps say a word to you about not getting your hopes up. But then, you were just children. It seemed a silly thing to think about at the time.”

Niall stood up. “Father,” he said, “it’s because of you that I can make my way in the world. You let me go off to the city and learn as much as I could, and let me work for you here. I want you to know how much I appreciate that, how proud I am to be your son.”

His father looked surprised. “It’s nothing but a father’s duty,” he said. “But I was glad to do it. You were never a moment’s trouble to me. Everyone said I was mad for trying to raise you on my own after—” He paused. “That I should have sent you to live with your aunties. But you were— you were my last link to her. I wasn’t about to let you go. And if I let you run a little wild, let you take liberties— well, you had spirit. And I was sure your heart was good.” He paused again. “Still am, you know.”

He offered his son his hand. They shook, and embraced tightly.

“God, but be careful, son,” his father whispered.

“I will.”

“Be back when you can. And write in the meantime. Let me know you’re safe.”

“I will.”

They parted, Niall’s father nodding briefly before turning to go. “Good night, son,” he said.

Niall nodded in return. “Good night.”

*

The horses hadn’t forgotten Niall’s smell, or the cadence of his voice even if it had deepened, and none of them stirred when he dropped his satchel just inside the stable, or even when he saddled up Libby and fed her a small meal of oats and a carrot. He laid his guitar tenderly beside his satchel, closed his dark coat around himself, and made his way across the meadow to the rear of the manor house where the servants’ entrance was tucked, just behind the kitchen. 

It was early enough that the cook should not have been stirring yet, but the lord had guarded that entrance too. The single guard there was ready for him, already laying a hand on his sword. “My good man,” Niall said, holding up his hands, “I have no quarrel with you.”

“Nor I with you,” the guard returned. “But I have my orders from the lord. And in truth, you’re

lucky it’s me and not one of the other guards, for we’re permitted to use any means, including immediate death, to deny you in particular entrance to the house. I know you to be a decent lad, but the lord’s taken quite the dislike to you, and with the lady Fionna in the state she is—”

“I am aware. And I understand your charge. Tell me, what would it take for you to grant me entry?”

“I’m afraid you cannot buy my transgression, not that you could afford even a week’s wages. Certainly not the same for the rest of my life should the lord find out that I let you pass.”

Niall nodded and sighed. “Good man,” he murmured. “And may whatever god may listen forgive me.”

And he struck the guard with all his might, and as the man reeled backwards, Niall seized him by the shoulders and smothered him with the cloth he’d soaked in turpentine before he left his father’s workshop. It would only stun him, and only for a short time, but Niall hoped it would be long enough to complete his task. The guard’s body went limp, and Niall laid him as gently as he could on the stone walkway before seizing his keys, trying several before he found the one that opened the servants’ entrance. Then he spirited up the servants’ staircase to the upper floor where the bedchambers were.

Was Fionna’s chamber the same as it had been when she would slip inside during games of hide-and-seek, smugly assured he wouldn’t dare enter? (Spirited though he might have been as a child, he never did, sure even as a boy that he shouldn’t be in her bedchamber but curious as to what might happen in there when he would watch her hair ribbons fly behind her before she slammed the door.) It was. Again he tested a clutch of keys before finding the one that worked, and he opened the door as quietly as he could.

Fionna lay within, her dark hair spread out behind her, her shape small in a white nightgown in the great bed and traced by the light of the moon. Niall’s breath caught in his throat for a moment when he spotted the apple just beneath the bed; he bent to pick it up and examine it. Strange how it hadn’t begun to turn brown and rot. The flesh was as white as Fiona’s nightgown, the skin still the red-purple-black of a bruise. Enchanted indeed. He tucked it in the pocket of his coat, and gathered his courage.

He bent over her still form, and though Nuala had told him as much, he was still surprised, and not a little terrified, to find her cheek cold when he laid his hand there, to see her not stir at the touch.  _ But she isn’t dead,  _ he assured himself.  _ I can kiss her. I must kiss her. I know her heart. _

He took a deep breath and laid his lips on hers, gently. “Fionna,” he whispered.

There was nothing, at first. Then her eyelids fluttered, and her nose wrinkled, and her lips trembled. 

“Niall,” she whispered, and it was his name she spoke, and she’d awoken from her sleep, and oh whatever god was listening, it had  _ worked.  _ He offered a silent prayer for Nuala’s genius in all its forms. “What are you—”

“It was the apple, Fionna, love. I got it from Nuala the witch, it put you into a deep sleep until I could come back here for you, I  _ told  _ you—”

“It was your name. I said your name.”

“Well, it’s not the eve anymore, but perhaps it’s still worth something.”

“How long—”

“This is the third night.”

“What now, then?”

“Run off to the city like you wanted. Find a priest as soon as we can and be wed, if you like.”

“Your name,” she murmured. “I said your name.”

“That’s right. But you need to go  _ now,  _ Fionna, your father’s guard will know I’m here before long and we have to go  _ now. _ Will you go with me then, Fionna?”

She rubbed her eyes and sat up slowly. Her eyes looked around the room and rested on a small chest on her dressing table. Then she looked up at Niall, his face open but tense, biting his lip, pushing back a handful of hair—

“Yes,” she said. 

He kissed her again. He couldn’t help it, even with time as short as it was. The color came back to her cheeks and she sat up the rest of the way, then sprang out of bed. 

“I can’t carry much,” she mumbled, “just— that chest, and I’ll dress—”

“There’s no time. Have you got a winter cloak?”

“In the cupboard there.”

He pulled it out, a heavy ermine lined with sapphire velvet, and helped her into it. “Now,” 

He said. “Down the servants’ staircase and out to the stable, aye?”

She nodded. “Let’s go.”

They ran down the corridor to the stairs, through the kitchen, and over the guard, who was stirring as they crossed by him. “Ah, isn’t that—” the guard called slurringly.

“No,” Fionna called back, giggling. “Not at all.”

They tore across the meadow like they’d done for so many years of their lives to the stables, and Fionna slid her mother’s jewels into Niall’s satchel before they mounted Libby and rode like mad for the road. 

Neither of them thought to look behind them. But if they had, they might have seen a small light in the window of Nuala’s cottage, and the witch stepping into the doorway, a blanket over her shoulders in the chill of the very edge of where night becomes morning, a cup of tea in her hands.

She laughed softly. “Well done, then, lad,” she said, and patted her belly.

*

They rode as the sun rose, higher and higher in the sky, until they came to the borders of the city. “Shall we, then, Fionna,” Niall said to her, her arms wrapped around him and her cheek against his shoulder.

She didn’t answer right away. Then she said, “You did all this— you went to the witch, you came to the feast, you came back to the manor—”

Niall nodded. 

“I never thought to ask you,” she said. “Either for— help, maybe, or for what you wanted—”

“Is this enough of an answer for you, then?” 

She tightened her arms around his waist. “It is.”

“Tomorrow you’ll go to the library, like you said. And we’ll sort everything out together.”

“We will.”

“Shall we go, then?”

“To the church.”

“The first one we see.”

They found an old priest who asked no questions about the young man with his curls askew from riding all night and the young woman in a nightgown and an ermine cloak, and signed the banns in a small chapel beside the main road. They rode Libby to a jeweler’s shop, where they sold Fionna’s mother’s jewels and purchased two modest wedding rings out of the silver, and took what remained to a humble inn, where they rested Libby and ate a tavern lunch and collapsed into the small bed, still clothed, in the small room they rented. Niall placed his guitar with great care in the corner, and with a small smile drew the apple from the pocket of his coat and sat it on the table beside the bed.

And they looked at it, and then each other, for a long while, their lives utterly undone and about to be put back together. Niall touched a finger to Fionna’s lips, and she kissed it.

“Will we—” She stopped, looked down briefly, and then looked back up at him.

“Permit me to say that I hope so,” he said, laughing. “But it needn’t be right now.”

“But it could be.”

He propped himself up on one elbow, brushed her hair away from her face. “Aye,” he said, carefully, “if it pleases you.”

*

Nuala took her time going to the door when the frantic pounding came later that morning. “You,” the lord spluttered, shaking his finger, “you had a hand in this somehow—”

“Whatever do you mean,” she returned coolly, leaning against the doorframe. “In what, then.”

“Oh, don’t play that with me, you old  _ witch. _ ” 

“Aye, a witch I am. Better that than an old rich fool selling his daughters off to the highest bidders, reveling in his feasts and his lands and his horses.”

“How  _ dare _ you?” He clenched his fists. “I’ve observed the custom of the feast for all of my daughters, blessed by the church—”

“Sure you have. And when they spoke no name on the eve, with no magic to guide them and no knowledge of what real love might be, you took the father’s prerogative of persuading them to marry the richest suitor with the finest favour, so you could have another splendid feast. And you know that not all of them came to good ends. You’d be surprised what an old witch hears, lord, I tell you that.”

“So Fionna has—”

“She’s made a good match, believe it or not.” 

“Has she— she hasn’t—”

“Gone off with the luthier’s son? Aye, she has, and may they be blessed. He’s a good lad, far better I say than all the suitors with all their favours combined. And before you  _ dare _ to scold me, lord,” Nuala added, “think on this: your daughter might be safe at home had you asked her even once what she might have wanted. The enchantment I gave the luthier’s son would only work if he was her true love, so there you have it. Had you welcomed him into your home, gotten to know him, you might finally have had a true son, one who wouldn’t have packed your daughter off to some far distant castle or sailed her across the sea. Might have known your grandchildren. Would that be so terrible, then, so much worse than your daughter being gone to you quite possibly forever, with only the memory of a vain, grasping father who might rather see her dead than happy?”

The lord was aghast. “I will  _ not _ forget your cheek this day, you can be sure of that,” he said. “It might be weeks, or months, or years, but I will see you burn.”

“Hasten the day,” she retorted. “I am not afraid of you, or of any man.”

“I’ll tell everyone what you did—”

“Aye, you do that. I can’t imagine it won’t be good for business.” She laughed and shook her head. “And not a moment too soon. Good day to you, lord.”

And she closed the door, still laughing, leaving Fionna’s father on her doorstep, shaking with rage and, perhaps, though he would never admit it, grief and shame.

*

Fionna nodded. 

Niall kissed her then, different from the kiss that awoke her. She kissed him back, and together they tasted each other’s mouths and nipped at each other’s lips and tongues, laughing into each other’s throats. She loosened her cloak and let it fall on the floor, heedless of the dust that would cling to the white fur; he stripped off his coat and his tunic, and she pressed her hand to his bare chest.

“Four days ago I was dreading the rest of my life,” she said softly. “I couldn’t see that I might still spend it with my old friend.”

“I couldn’t bear the idea of it,” he agreed. “Forgive my arrogance. I only hoped—”

She kissed him again, silencing him. “Touch me, love,” she said. 

He lifted off her nightgown, and there were her small round breasts, and from Nuala’s schooling he remembered how to handle them without roughness. He remembered how to touch her, sliding away her undergarments, and she shuddered as his long fingers ran along her belly and her thighs, his fingertips callused from work and play, then slipping inside her. She moaned softly— “Are you all right, then?” “Yes, yes—”— and with his hand still nestled between her legs he kissed her again, and she closed around him and held on with all of herself: her hands grasping his strong back, her teeth holding on to his lower lip, her ankles curled around his calves. 

“Let me just—” He pushed down his breeches to free himself, and Fionna let go long enough for him to finish undressing, and then he said, “I might kiss you— there, also.”

“Kiss me? There?”

“Aye.”

Her eyes wide, she nodded, and he did, lying between her legs rather than beneath her as he’d done for Nuala, but like Nuala she cried out with pleasure and grew warm and ready, her knees trembling, the wetness gathering like dew. She ran her fingers through his hair, down to the nape of his neck where a missing lock of hair was already growing back, curling in on itself, restoring itself as they restored their lives. She held on there, tugging him to her, and he thought, with a smile,  _ Well, she’s awake now, isn’t she. _

As her body shook beneath his touch and his kiss, he gave her thighs a last nuzzle with his lips, his light beard softer than she’d imagined.

“Will we— will you—” She hesitated.

“If you’re ready.”

“I’ll never be readier.”

He nodded, and she gasped, a high, reedy sound followed by a long, soft sigh, and she clung to

him more tightly than she had before, her fingers small but the nails sharp in his shoulder blades, but he didn’t care, she might have drawn blood but he wouldn’t leave her embrace for all the silver in the land. He wanted to feel her holding on to him forever. And Fionna, knowing how close she’d come to having to let him go forever, was only too glad to press her body into his, to feel them becoming the one flesh promised even as she could feel a life she’d so lately thought impossible beginning just for her. It was all too much. She cried out and then he did too, and they fell into each other’s arms, and Fionna wept for a moment as Niall pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.

“Aren’t you lovely, though,” he said. “Every bit as lovely as I’d imagined and then some.”

“Could you have imagined this?”

“Maybe not. But here we are.”

“Will they come looking for me, do you suppose?”

“They might, but it’s too late now, isn’t it.”

Fionna nodded. “Good.” She stretched, laid her head back on his chest. “I love you, you know. I think I always have.”

“I didn’t know how much I loved you until I had to leave you that day in the stable, and I thought it would kill me to never see you again. Thought I could hold on, write you letters, that there’d be a crack in the whole thing—” He paused. “But I realised I’d have to do it myself. I was never so afraid as those three days, when you were— asleep. Worried that perhaps you didn’t love me. I hid out in my father’s workshop building one last guitar, all the while trying to figure out how I’d get in to try to wake you.”

“But you did it. And I won’t be sorry you did.”

“Did you— what was it like, when you were asleep? Did you— dream, anything like that?”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember,” she said. “But I thought of you, just before I prayed, and then I ate the apple.”

“You thought of me?”

She stood up, drew the chest that had held her mother’s jewels from Niall’s satchel, and showed him the book of hours where his flowers were pressed. 

“I never stopped,” she said. “I just didn’t know what I could hope for.”

Niall grinned and pulled her back to himself, and she laid the book beside the apple on the bedside table, and they kissed again. “This,” he said, “as it turns out.”

“And more,” she agreed.

And they kissed again, reveling in their freedom to do it, in the narrow embrace of the walls of the small room, in the shadow of the enchanted apple.


End file.
